Cell Phones

Sony R1 Review of Pros And Cons

- Analysis by KJ David

Making its debut in November of 2017 (mainly to the Indian market), the 5.2-inch Xperia R1 is tailored to Sony's mid-end and entry-level clientele, with a mix of pros and cons that won't likely break the bank.

Its most-appealing attribute (as far as mid-level standards are concerned) is imaging. It features a 13-megapixel LED-flash-equipped primary camera equipped with Sony's Predictive Hybrid Autofocus and 12 preset capturing modes. The forenamed camera features an Exmor Sony image sensor and offers Sony's self-branded 8X Clear Zoom technology . On the flipside, its selfie camera is an 8-megapixel shooter that's also equipped with the Hybrid Autofocus system -- selfie shooters with autofocus were not that common of a pro in this Android class around the time of its release.

Up front, it sports a 5.2-inch HD 1280 x 720 TFT display , which, although not that impressive by 2017 standards, at least rocks a 2.5D curved glass finish . Heading over to memory, its storage capacity is not too shabby, coming in the form of a 16GB UFS internal memory that can be expanded by a maximum of 128GB.

As for hardware, the Sony Xperia R1 maintains its mid-range theme specs-wise, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 eight-core processor (1.4GHz maximum clock speed) and only 2GB of RAM in charge of processing. Now, despite its Snapdragon 430 engine being a low-ranking chip among eight-core processors , it is an eight-core engine nevertheless, which was still a high-value facet for a mid-range smartphone as of this review.

Joining its other pros and cons is a 2620mAh battery, which we think could have been bumped up to 3000mAh , the apparent sweet spot for 2017 middle-class Androids. Having said that, given its unambitious display and modest hardware setup engine, 2620mAh does not sound half bad. The R1 is also equipped with standard 4G LTE Cat 4 connectivity and it comes in either Black or Silver.

All said, the Xperia R1 obviously won't sit anywhere near Sony's elite Xperia models, but it does make for a passable choice for mid-range smartphone shoppers with an inclination towards imaging and multimedia.